A classic case for ‘class action’

Wired reported recently the story of Tanya Andersen, who had been defending herself against an RIAA lawsuit for about two years before the RIAA dropped its case.

Andersen is “thanking” the RIAA by launching a legal offensive against her former accusers, filing suit against Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music, the RIAA, MediaSentry, and Settlement Support Center.

Andersen’s complaint claims the RIAA’s methods are criminal, and that their lawyers are needlessly vicious in pursuing defendants. The complaint states that, “. . . it has been discovered that as a part of this secret enterprise MediaSentry has for years conducted illegal, flawed and negligent investigations of many thousands of private United States citizens. These illegal investigations are then used as the sole basis for pursuit of tens of thousands of lawsuits throughout the US.”

Go, Tanya!

(Larry Cafiero, editor/publisher of Open Source Reporter, is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)